


Invincible Summer

by anythingbutgrief



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pacific Rim AU, drift compatible, sort of, very messy and generally plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1842502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutgrief/pseuds/anythingbutgrief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what they don't tell you, when you decide to become a warrior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the memories in the drift discuss, in what might constitute disturbing emotional detail, the characters’ feelings about abuse and sexual assault. I tried not to get too explicit in describing the events themselves but please be careful in reading if that is a trigger for you.

This is what they don't tell you, when you decide to become a warrior.

 It's never one decision. It's never one moment. It's never one crossing of the threshold, one accepting of the mission, one helmet sliding into place one time, one sword lifting high once. 

 _It's every day_ , Ian thought when he slid out of bed in the morning, when he stumbled to the bathroom, tripping on the weights he'd left on the foot of his bed the night before. Ian got up and looked in the mirror and took his medicine and slipped into his black clothes and thought,  _Today. Today I am going to fight._

He just wished, more than anything, that there would come a time when he would stop having to announce it to himself for it to feel anywhere close to true. 

***

Their bodies clung together when they finished, their sweat an adhesive, but Ian wouldn't have pulled away if he could. 

"That was good," Mickey remarked. 

It was a nightly thing, after the residential hallways had dimmed, after the drunken "it's the end of the world, so lose yourself" parties on base had quieted. The first time had happened the night Mickey arrived as a new recruit. The second time Ian had been pacing the span of his room, over and over and over, like he'd been infected with some new strain of energy that wouldn't let him rest until it was exorcised out of his body again. God knows he had enough of that to deal with already. He was working up the nerve, saying to himself, "If I'm not sleepy in five paces, I'll go out and see if he's out there still. Okay, ten. Okay, fifteen. Okay, thirty-five."

Mickey burst through the door by pace fifty-three. "We doin' this or what?"

Each night after that, Ian just sat up in bed instead, counting away minutes until Mickey would reliably walk in, slip off his clothes and slide his body against Ian's.

Ian expected him to be quiet, efficient, all-business about it, but the more they were together the looser his tongue became. Mickey would huff out fucked-out laughter and murmur about how good it was, staring at the ceiling rather than Ian like he was exclaiming his sexual accomplishment to some invisible watcher. And he would let Ian talk, sometimes. 

"I wonder where Fiona and Lip are right now," he murmured. Fiona and Lip, out there killing kaiju. The second they'd heard about the drift technology, Ian had assumed it would be him and Lip. They had always been two sides of the same coin, light and dark, sun and moon and all that shit. Nobody could have been more compatible than them, right?

But, no, it was Fiona. Fiona's annoyed voice snapping at Lip to straighten his damn back all the way, Lip's sarcastic barbs when Fiona moved her legs faster than he could keep up, and Ian couldn't understand how it was that their antagonistic energy made for a better match than Lip and Ian's relationship, when they had always been closest.  Maybe it was because there had been a time, however small, when there was no Ian, and it was just Fiona and Lip taking care of each other. Maybe there was more shared space in their drift. Or maybe Ian was just too weak to stand up to Lip, and that their pairing would have never worked because it could have never been equal. Maybe it was because Lip and Fiona had all the same blood, all rushing to the same end. And he didn't.

But Ian had smiled, hugged Fiona so hard he lifted her off the ground, clapped Lip on the back and said, "Go. Kill 'em for me, okay?" and swallowed his pain as they flew away. Sometimes, when Ian talked about how he hadn't found a match for the drift yet, when he mentioned that he came with his siblings, that they were warriors now, when he would force a smile and talk about how proud he was of them, Mickey would look at him with his mouth open and his eyes scanning over Ian's face, like he could read those thoughts anyway. 

Especially tonight, when he let Ian hold on to his hand, counting the calluses on his fingers and palm. "Wall?" 

"Yeah."

"Is that where....is that where your family is?" Ian whispered, not letting go of Mickey's hand.

Mickey was quiet for a minute, but he didn't pull out of Ian's grasp. "Some of 'em, yeah."

And that was enough. Ian didn't need Mickey to tell him war stories, not when he had his own to contend with, and especially not when he could practically read them in Mickey's flesh as it was, read them in the way he would clutch onto Ian's back and Ian's hair and Ian's hands mid-fuck like if he didn't have something to anchor him he would float away. Like he needed Ian to remind him that he was alive, that he was real, that he was flesh and bone and blood, flesh and bone and blood that was good for more than putting block on top of block, putting punch on top of punch. Sometimes, when Mickey would demand into his ear, "Deeper, come on, deeper. Give it. Give--to me," then, as he lost his breath, whispering, " _Everything_ ," Ian felt like he was fucking Mickey to the edge of the world, to the very brink and then clutching Mickey tight to his body so he couldn't fall over. 

After, at least after the first dozen or so times, Mickey would let Ian cradle him to his chest, pet his hair, dance his nails gently up and down Mickey's back and neck and scalp until they were both calm, until Mickey was practically liquid against his skin.

And yet. 

When Mickey left, as he always left, wouldn't stick around to be seen leaving Ian's room in the light of day, Ian wasn't ever satisfied. Not really. Not roll-over-into-sweet-endless-oblivion satisfied. No matter how many times he fucked Mickey, no matter how good it was, he would stay awake, unfulfilled, staring at his wall like he could tear through it with his will and see more of him. More of Mickey. 

He was falling into this man. He could feel it, as inevitable as the first leaf flinging effortlessly from its branch at the end of summer, and braced himself to be whipped by the wind, into his doom, by the gravity of his heart, pulling him deeper and deeper with every beat. He was falling in love with a man made of ice, like summer chasing winter.

_Winter kills summer. That's the way it goes. They never get to meet, not on the same sides of the planet anyway._

Ian groaned, rolled over to stuff his face into the pillow. Whatever. He could deal with this. He's dealt with this before, his stupid mind's stupid tendency to turn things into more than they were, to turn himself into more than he was, when he would never be anything more to Mickey than a toy, would never be anything in life other than a tool with broken parts. It was fine. 

He flung his hand out, painfully catching the edge of his bedside table, to check that he had his pills ready to be taken upon waking, not trusting the way his legs were shaking under the blankets right now.  _Go to sleep, idiot, dumbass, shithead, asshole, stupid little boy, stupid little dreamer, go to sleep so you can dream up more things that'll never happen, more ways that you matter in your mind that you never will in life, dream it up._

_Dream that, when the world ends, when the different oceans finally meet, winter and summer will knock into each other like the pieces of a broken reflection cutting themselves back to wholeness._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the descriptions of the experiences in the drift are potentially triggering regarding abuse, sexual assault, and depression.

Two months. And nothing. Not a single successful match. Nobody even remotely close to being able to do the neural handshake with Mickey.

It was getting embarrassing.

Because, yeah, Mickey didn't really care for the whole joint effort thing. Back home he and his brothers descended on their targets in a swarm, strength in numbers and all that, but at the end of the day he was throwing punches as quickly and as forcefully as he could and that was the beginning and end of his strategy. He didn't worry about where other people were keeping their body parts, or what they were doing with them. Everyone just knew they had to stay out of his way and let him get the job done. 

So, yeah, the whole "getting accustomed to coordinating yourself to another person's body" thing? Not a cakewalk. Not even a hot coal walk, if he's being honest.

It didn't help matters that Gallagher always hovered around, tossing pointers out then and there to the newer recruits, but mostly just. watching. It would be unnerving, the way Mickey always found the kid staring at him during the training sessions, if he didn't feel so fucking flattered. Somehow the way his stomach would start to feel floaty balanced how exposed he felt, watching Ian watch him with that bare, raw look. 

Four, five, six disappointments of sparring sessions today. Most of the time, Mickey proved too rough, knocking the wind out of his partner so painfully they'd stumble away, rubbing at the newly forming bruise on their lower back and giving loaded praise. "Yeah, no, I don't think I'm enough for you, buddy," that he knew weren't actually compliments at heart. 

He'd been through the rounds, now, and there was nobody left. The Commander, whatshisface, fucking Hut, who'd dragged Mickey here in the first place, was standing in the corner with a scrunched-up expression on his face, like he'd smelled something foul, and Mickey wondered for a moment if he was about to get kicked off the base for proving incapable of compatibility. He felt a stab of panic at the idea.  _Why? What's so wrong with that?_

"Gallagher." The Commander's voice jolted him out of his own head, and he considered for a brief paranoid moment that the fucker could actually read minds and was answering Mickey's own question, before Ian was stepping off the wall and standing at attention. 

"Sir."

"Fight the Milkovich."

"Wha--I--Sir, I thought you said that I was never going to--"

"Yeah, and pretty soon I'm going to say the same thing to him, too. Maybe two unmatchables will work. Or maybe you'll fucking kill each other. Either way we need the entertainment." The Commander flicked his eyes from Ian's face to Mickey's. "This is a general announcement, but it needs to be said. Stop boring me, recruits." Mickey felt himself flush, knowing it wasn't fucking general at all, wanting to show the uptight army fuck exactly how un-boring Mickey's fighting style could be, but he was interrupted by Ian stripping out of his jacket and popping the joints in his arms, stretching out his limbs in front of him.

"You should really stretch, you know. Prevents hurting yourself during a fight."

Mickey smirked, cocky. "I'm not the one getting hurt here, Gallagher."

Ian's head shot up from where he was stretching toward his toes at that, eyes intense, and Mickey belatedly realized how loaded those words were. But in a second the spark of emotion slinked back out of sight, Ian picking up the cane the last sparrer had abandoned and straightening his body to full size, muscles ready. "We'll see."

It was ten minutes of non-hit for non-hit, the two easily dodging each other's maneuvers, and Mickey himself was getting annoyed, especially seeing the Commander yawn in the distance. But it was when he noticed that little line forming in between Ian's eyebrows, that look of concentration and concern as he stopped his wrist from getting the cane too close to Mickey, that sent him over. Fucker was holding back.

Mickey reared forward, smacked the cane against Ian's side, just hard enough to make a noise. Ian yelped and rubbed the spot, but a second later Ian was back in action, smacking into Mickey's side with equal force just as the Commander was yelling, "No. No! That is not how this exercise goes."

Mickey groaned. "Aw, come on, how are we ever going to figure out if this thing works if we keep holding back?" 

"You're no good to me hurt."

"We're no good to you unmatched, out of the drift," Ian cut in, surprising Mickey. "We need to see if this works."

Hut drummed his fingers together, considering for a few moments, before sighing. "Fine. But if the world doesn't end, you don't get to fucking sue me."

Ian grinned for a second, but then he went back into position, leaning forward into Mickey's space.

_Smack_. "You need technique."

If there had been the slightest hint of that familiar lopsided smile on Ian's face, Mickey would have taken it for teasing,  _you need to work on your technique_ , but Ian's face was serious, steady, his voice non-joking, and that pissed Mickey off. "You need."  _Smack_.  "To get out of your damn head so much."

"At least I think with the correct head."  _Smack_. "You're messy." 

_Smack_. "Yeah, and you're a mess." Beads of sweat had started to bead uncomfortably on the back of Mickey's neck, but he could see the same thing happening on Ian's face and in patches along his tank top. "You can hide it out there with your notebook but in here I can see it like my own fucking hand, man."  _Smack_. "You melted yet?"

Mickey had been referring to the sweat dripping off of Ian's hair, but he could tell by the way Ian's lips quirked up he didn't take it that way. "Not even close."  But his smile broadened and his eyes twinkled and Mickey read in them,  _Yes. Yes I have melted. Just wait._

_Smack_. That one stung Mickey's ass, and he glared at Ian, who was grinning with perfect awareness, and Mickey snarled and eyed Ian's sac, considering.

"No. Mickey.  _No_."

He grinned so wide his cheeks started to ache and playfully swiped his cane through the air, level with Ian's crotch. Ian reared back but stepped into his position again a millisecond later, smiling that dream smile at Mickey. 

"Hey! Hey!" the Commander's voice boomed from the sidelines.

"Just playing around, ref, cool your jets."

"Yeah, well, save that for your bedrooms, recruit." 

Mickey snapped his head toward the commander at that, and he could see in his peripheral vision that Ian had, too, but he didn't dare look away yet to see if the kid mirrored his dumb open-mouthed expression. "Um," he heard him say after a minute of staring at the smirking Hut. 

"Battle's not over yet, boys," a voice from the sidelines cheered, apparently unsurprised at the latest development. 

Well. Fuck. 

_Smack_. Ian's weapon connected with Mickey's thigh, putting him one behind now, which was unacceptable, so Mickey pushed the fact that he was evidently "out" here without ever stepping out of any closet away to worry about later. Right now he had Gallagher's ass to kick, right in front of him when Ian thought he could spin and kick him with a flourish.  _Smack_. Tied back up, ass hit for ass hit. Mickey grinned at Ian's pouty expression when he turned back. 

"Now who's sloppy?" he teased as they pivoted around each other, swinging the wooden canes with ease. 

Ian swept his feet, and Mickey knocked into the mat with a groan. "Still you," Ian taunted in sing-song above him. Mickey didn't bother reaching for his weapon, instead just grabbing at Ian's ankle until he tried to jump away from him, smacking into his leg with his other hand and then his feet until Ian collapsed into a heap on top of him. They laughed against each other, breathless for a few moments, ignoring the disgusted complaints of the watchers that were now petering out, losing interest, but after a moment Mickey grabbed his weapon, slapped gently against Ian's sides, once for each, before shoving him off and getting to his feet.

"Sloppy works for me, Gallagher." 

Ian was on his feet again, but Mickey got in the first hit, to his shin. Ian got his shoulder. Mickey got his elbow, his ribs. Ian got his hip, his knee. Over and over, back and again, back and again, until the sweat dripped into Mickey's eyes and Ian's cheeks had gone blotchy with color. 

It wasn't a bad look for him. 

It was Ian who tore his eyes away for a millisecond, just long enough to gauge the room before fending off Mickey's attack. "Commander's gone and left, it looks like," he said. 

Mickey put space between them, not entirely trusting that it wasn't a trick to divert his attention, before verifying the statement. He relaxed then, letting his cane hang loose at his side, watching Ian do the same. "So who won, then?"

Ian shook his head, gave that half-smile that Mickey was coming to associate with being pressed into the mattress. 

Tied.

And.  _Tied_. To each other. They knew that now.

Maybe they knew that before. Mickey would be lying if he said he hadn't thought of it, especially that one night a week and a half ago, when Ian had nodded off immediately after coming, nuzzling into Mickey's neck, breathing so closely against his skin it was like Mickey was the oxygen Ian needed to survive. 

"Fuck," Mickey exhaled, kicking his cane away from him, collapsing back into the mat. Ian joined him a second later. 

"Yeah," Ian agreed, getting on his side to stare at Mickey, his hair damp with sweat as if they'd just fucked. 

"The hell do we do with this information?" Mickey coughed out, trying for some levity, but he felt himself turn to face Ian, without the cooperation of his brain, felt himself sink into the mat when Ian's hand came up to smooth over Mickey's shoulder and arm.

"Drift." 

"What if we can't--what if we're wrong?" Mickey feigned curiosity, not a doubt in his mind that they were right, that they were built for the drift. 

"We'll test it first," Ian said. "Just you and me."

***

This is what they don't tell you about connecting yourself to something.

It hurts. 

Okay, maybe you knew that already. 

The losing yourself, all the borders you've erected around yourself, points of demarcation--this is where I begin, this is where I end, what is inside this is me--all of those boundaries crossed and re-crossed and crossed out. That's what you expect, what you brace yourself for, like waiting for the whisper of oblivion on your deathbed, like jumping into deep dark water that swallows your form whole. You prepare yourself for that part. 

What you don't know, what they don' t tell you, is that what really happens is that those borders aren't just crossed. They're revealed. Shown to you as clear as tiny thin arbitrary lines on a map you need to survive. This. This is where you've limited yourself. This is where you decided to stop being a person.

It's not the losing yourself that hurts. It's the finding. 

***

Home. He could smell it before anything else. Ian's brain had recorded that smell, and it filled Mickey like a balloon, like he could just float gently forever in Chicago air, as if this memory was his fucking home, rather than Ian's. The thought snapped Mickey away from the smell, back into his other senses, thinking  _Ian, Ian, Ian._

The first thing Mickey could see:

Ian in an empty room, standing still, staring blankly ahead, body unmoving, silent alone. 

With blotches of color blooming and fading and pulsing on his body, on and off, on and off, color-coded memories that Mickey could read on his skin, where they had been written so that they wouldn't have to be said. 

Ian's rage coiled like a burning red sun in his chest.

Ian's invisible bruises. Ian saying with unbroken conviction, perfect belief, "He hates me." 

The flush of shame up his chest when he hears himself defined as "forbidden fruit," chewed up and spat out, an object for consumption.

The cold drip of certainty down his spine when his siblings looked at him with open disgust, his weak defense of "He's nice" doing nothing to stop the chilly "I told you so" voice in his head.  _See? I told you what they'd think of you. Homewrecker. Liar. Whore._

That numb black space, neither hot nor cold, that marched through his chest like Sherman to the sea, as strange hands grabbed at him and strange voices floated praise that meant nothing, strange pills swallowed over and over and over, his own frantic heartbeat feeling like a stranger setting up camp in his chest. The voice in his brain, ranting, raving, rambling, that would sometimes quiet and say, "Yeah, you're dirty. Yeah, you're trash. Yeah, you've got a broken empty brain and a usable, used-up body. But so what? It's not like you were ever going to be anything else. At least now you know." 

And the crushing grey static of the crashes, Ian lying in bed. At first glance, Mickey thought, it looked like a younger Ian, Ian with a silly haircut and a rounder face, a somewhat shorter, skinnier body. But as he approached, more and more it looked like now Ian, his Ian, clutching the pillow, clenching and unclenching his fists into the fabric and exhaling forcefully like it was taking everything he had just to do that action alone, and when Mickey looked around, tried to find other Ians, other moments, other shades in his once-colorful life, he realized that the drift had boxed them in. This room. This bed. This Ian. Who was still..... _his_  Ian.

He must think about it all the time, Mickey thought, and images flitted through his brain right after, Ian getting up and doing push-ups and showering and swallowing his medication with machine-like dedication, Ian offering grim smiles at his siblings when they looked at him with silent concern, Ian swallowing the resentment that took up shop in his brain whenever he had to reassure them, Ian staring at himself in the mirror with his chin jutting out proudly, his eyes grey and distant.  _He thinks about it all the time. He is fighting off this bed scene all the time. Just sleep, come on, just give up, just give in, come on, come on, you know you want to, you know it's what you are, really, a sweaty useless body, come on._

And Mickey fell to his knees beside the bed, putting his hand out tentatively next to Ian's head, not touching but close. "Hey," he whispered. "Hey, Ian, hey." Ian blinked at him, just the barest shadow of recognition passing through his eyes. "You know you're not here, right? This isn't real, right?" 

Blink.

"We're in the drift, Ian." It was the first time he'd said his name out loud, Mickey realized, and it wasn't even actually said. Not where anyone could hear. But Ian could. And somehow that was the only thing that mattered. "It's just you and me." 

"Did I dream you up?" Ian croaked out, like he hadn't used his voice for weeks. 

"No," Mickey responded, reaching out to brush hair back from Ian's forehead. "No, I'm here." 

Ian's eyes pivoted to stare at Mickey's fingers on his skin, and he kept them there, considering. "No, I think I invented you. White knight bullshit. I'm good at that."

"Aw, come on, man. You're selling yourself short there. If you were really making this up, don't you think you could come up with a better hero figure than my dumb ass?" 

"No," Ian replied, voice full and honest. "No, I couldn't dream up anything better."

Mickey's stomach fell, and his muscles screamed to him, run,  _run, run, run, run, run, run,_  as the words looped over and over in his brain, as Ian's eyes, steadily filling with tears, looked at him expectantly, and he could see in his peripheral vision that a door had appeared on the other side of Ian's bed. An exit. Step right out of his mind. Step right out of this nonsense. Step right out of Ian.

But Mickey's hand tightened around a strand of Ian's hair. "Okay, then. If you made me, then I can get you out, right? That's how it works, right, princess?"

A smile broke out across Ian's face. "Fuck you."

"Don't be snippy because you lost your tiara, Your Highness," Mickey teased. stroking Ian's hair. "We can get out, though. I can get you out because you built me to get you out, right?" Ian shifted his eyes back and forth, from Mickey's face to the blanket to the wall to the blanket to Mickey's face, before nodding. "So what do I gotta do here, Mr. Architect? Do I gotta fight a dragon?" I have experience in that, Mickey wanted to say, but didn't, but he thought maybe that Ian heard that thought anyway, from the slow, sweet smile that spread on his face like melting ice cream. 

"It's stupid, but," Ian murmured, bringing his hand from under the pillow to knock against Mickey's. Mickey clutched at it like it was the only rope tethering him to the ground. It felt like flesh. It felt realer than any body he'd ever felt in his life. "I feel. It feels real, okay? I know it's 'all in my head' and all that bullshit, I know that, but it feels fucking real," Ian said, voice angry as though Mickey had argued with him.

"Okay," Mickey said. "I get that. What do I gotta do?"

Ian sighed, planted his elbow deep into the mattress to lean his head onto his hand and slowly push his body from the bed. "I feel...it feels like I haven't walked in.....I feel weak. Can you just--I need." He shook his head, staring down at their linked hands until Mickey gave him an encouraging squeeze. "Help me up." Mickey immediately brought his other arm around Ian's torso, and together they fumbled for a few moments untangling Ian's body from the blankets he'd cocooned around himself, and after that he disentangled his right hand from Ian's in order to support his head as he pulled him to his feet. 

The door behind the bed looked farther than before.

"All right, royal boy," Mickey grunted, bearing Ian's weight on his shoulders. "Let's get to slaying this dragon."

Ian's breath was loud in his ear, the effort of shuffling his feet in time with Mickey's apparently akin to a marathon for him, but it was joined by another noise. Those same words, from before. That same cold, familiar voice. 

_Kept boy, slut, forbidden fruit, twink, whore, used and usable, dirty, dirty, dirty._

Ian's breath got harsher, practically wheezing like he was puffing smoke out of his lungs, but Mickey hitched him up higher onto his shoulders and kept walking. Was the door getting farther away again? He gripped his fingers into Ian, hard. 

_Hey, Red, Hey, Curtis._

He turned Ian's head to his, saw the tears on his cheeks, the belief in his eyes.  _It's all I am._  

Mickey swallowed the roar in his chest.

And instead pressed a kiss against Ian's cheek. The first kiss that Mickey had given anyone, at least that he could remember. And then the second, and third, and fourth, and fifth, each as chaste as the last, lining Ian's cheeks. "You're not," he murmured against Ian's skin. "You're not. We'll get you out of here and I'll prove it, okay, prince?" Sixth. "Or are you a king, huh?" Seven. Ian's lips twitched upwards, and Mickey ached to press their mouths together, even as he brought his against Ian's ear, against the scruff lining his jaw. "King Ian, come on, come on, we can do this."

The door was so close Mickey could smell the wood, damp like a forest. "We got it. You got it. You're doing it," he whispered, his own voice hoarse with effort, giving Ian's face one last kiss as they stumbled against their destination. 

Ian's hand brushed against his, then brushed against the doorknob. "I got it. I got it," Ian whispered.

And opened the door, stepping into light so bright it burned.

All of Mickey's bones felt like dust.  _Now entering Mickey's brain. Ah, fuck._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this includes material that might be triggering regarding abuse and sexual assault.

The light was gone. That was what Ian noticed first. And then: Mickey huddling in a shadow, curled in on himself, the clouds around him blurring the edges of his body like ink stains. The closer Ian got, the thicker and darker the shadow became, the heavier its scent, clogging Ian's throat like smoke, until it finally coalesced into a man, an older man staring down at Mickey with disgust.

"How could you do this to me?" And Ian could see Mickey push his forehead onto his knees for one, two, three seconds before looking up to face him, Mickey's face trained to be as neutral as possible. "How?!" Mickey's dad, Ian realized, his insides curdling at the thought, knocked over the shelf, sending a skateboard and an iron and old pieces of jewelry clattering to the floor. 

Mickey just shook his head.

"How."

And that was what made Mickey look up, made Ian feel the pain that tore through Mickey's chest at the sound of his father's voice, that he had the audacity to sound so fucking sad, like Mickey had broken his heart, like Mickey had trampled on him, like Mickey was the one holding the gun and his father's spirit had been the one crying in the corner for nearly twenty years.

And, when Mickey saw him watching, met his eyes, Ian could see in Mickey's expression the wish, that that had been true, that there had been some victory in destroying his father, that it had been deliberate, designed, that Mickey was the architect and his father (Terry, the name came to Ian, with perfect clarity) was the crumbling building, right next to the guilt, just as big, taking up space in Mickey's head, that feeling that it was already true, that Mickey was the worthless traitorous thief who'd stolen his father's dignity. That part of him that wanted to hit his father, and that part of him that wanted to say, "Please. What can I do? Do you need to hit me? Would that make things better? Would that help you heal? Would that make you love me again?" And the part of him, the biggest part, that could only muster disgust at himself, that he could never choose between the two. 

The father, Terry, was towering over Mickey with an expectant expression on his face, like he was waiting for an apology, and Mickey opened his mouth, but Ian marched over before any words could come out, swiping his arm out to smash into the man--yet he turned into smoke. A shadow. A ghost. And Ian punched thin air.

He looked down at Mickey and saw him smiling, a little sadly. "Not your dragon, Ian," he murmured. 

Mickey's memory of his house felt cramped, suffocating with the stench of unfamiliar sweaty flesh clogging the air. "Is there somewhere else we can go?" Ian forced out, trying not to breathe through his nose.

"It all comes back to here," Mickey replied softly. "It's always here." He shut his eyes. 

And Ian saw tiny Mickey hiding under his blankets, frantically whispering the names of famous baseball players under his breath over and over again, like a mantra, trying to cover up the sounds of his parents' screaming out in the hall. A tinier Mickey in soiled pajama pants, closed-in on himself, chin tucked into his chest like he could make himself even smaller, like he could disappear into thin air, even as his mother's shaking hands tried to clean him. "You can't fucking do this anymore," she said in a low, trembling voice, as fearful as it was angry. "You gotta fucking stop. You gotta keep it in." 

Older Mickey smiling without his eyes. Older Mickey giving himself over to the buzz of alcohol, to the stronger buzz of men touching him in dark corners. Older Mickey saying, "This is it. This is all you get. Enjoy it while it lasts."

When Ian next blinked, when the last memory slid into place, Ian could feel it, taste it, smell it before he could see it, and he didn't want to see it, wanted to close his eyes to it, swallow away the taste of blood and shake off the ache of a gun barrel against his head and the sickening nausea of Mickey silently whispering to his own body:  _You traitor. How could you. How could you. How could you let them_ \--

But Ian didn't close his eyes. Because Mickey couldn't. He watched it happen to shadow Mickey, younger, memory Mickey, and he grabbed at current Mickey's hand, even though he flinched and pulled away from his touch. 

"I don't wanna do this anymore," Mickey muttered, voice dull and tired-sounding, as the vision faded, as they were back in an empty house. 

"Do what?"

"This fucking bullshit vision-quest shit," he grunted, gesturing with a hand toward the construction his mind had made of the site of his destruction. "The drift. Whatever. I just wanna go back."

"I don't know if we can," Ian said quietly, itching to touch Mickey but not wanting to startle him. 

"So, what? We go through the whole lovely catalog of moments from my childhood, is that it?" 

"If we have to." Ian looked around, though, and nothing was coming into place. No new scenes. And no doors, either. "Maybe...is there something that you feel, that you think of more often. Or...if not more often, or as often, then maybe something that feels stronger to you, in your brain? That didn't happen here?" Ian watched Mickey look away from him, watched him suck his bottom lip into his own mouth and worry at it like he was chewing at the end of a pencil. "Can you think of something like that?" 

"I don't wanna--you don't need to see...."

_I do_ , Ian thought.  _I do need to see something else. I do need to see that Terry hasn't won, that Terry doesn't get to own your brain like this_ , Ian thought, and he figured, given the way Mickey's face crumpled across from him, that he didn't need to say that out loud.

"Okay," Mickey said, so quietly Ian almost didn't hear it. "Okay. Just. Just. Don't fucking freak."

The room evaporated, and for a second it was all darkness, and Ian's heart caught in his throat. "Mickey?" he called out, reaching his hands out until he caught onto Mickey's solid form, his body feeling burning in comparison to Ian's cold hands. "Mickey, are we--?"

It was Ian's room. At the base. Mickey was sitting on the bed, clutching at the blankets, avoiding Ian's eyes.

Ian walked around each corner of the room. Mickey's mind had represented it faithfully, pretty much. It was cleaner in the drift than it was in real life, neater, and he felt himself perk up a little that Mickey thought of him that way, thought he was that "together."

"No door in here, either, huh?" Ian said once he made the rounds. "I wonder if--" He cut himself off when he glanced back over to the bed. The room was consumed whole.

The light again, so bright and hot and huge that Ian had to blink furiously for several seconds before his vision could return, and seek out its source. 

A light in Mickey, from the ends of his hair, the tips of his fingers and toes, pulsing closer to Ian, then drawing back, the push and pull of shining white blood slinging through the air like a whip. 

Ian felt the lashes, felt burned even though the white light didn't touch him, and it must have shown on his face because Mickey stepped back, further away from him, avoiding his eyes, but Ian walked forward, walked right into that heat. 

The pulse sung out a sound, a single word, two syllables, spoken into and out of Mickey's body, spelled out by that white warm light, over and over and over and over. 

Ian squinted, tried to concentrate, focus on the word, tried to make it out, but it escaped him, somehow both too soft and too loud at once. He stepped closer, until he had one leg in between Mickey's, their torsos pressing together, that pulse beating against Ian's body, singing into him. It hurt. Like his organs were being tugged out, replaced by that light from inside Mickey. Ian reached out, grabbed Mickey's chin to point his head upward. Mickey's eyes were screwed shut, like he knew that the second they met Ian would hear it, Ian would know.

"Mickey. Please. Let me," Ian whispered, brushing a thumb just under Mickey's brow. "Please."

Mickey's eyes, wide and wet, flew open, and if Ian couldn't make out the word now, he could see it in Mickey's eyes.

_Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian._

Sung out like a heartbeat from an open wound. 

Like the hole in Mickey's chest was a signature Ian couldn't remember making.

_Ian, Ian, Ian._

_***_

Ian was shocked back into his own body, his own mind, with his own eyes still burning from the light. Everything Mickey felt for Ian screaming in his body, so loud it should have torn out his voice, so loud and Ian had never heard a sound.

They were in his room, his real room, and Mickey was a foot away from him, but Ian could see him shaking, so he slid off the helmet and touched his sweat-drenched body.

Ian held him, and pushed their foreheads together, sighing at the two seconds of contact he was permitted to enjoy before Mickey would push him away. And that was okay, because he could understand now, why he would need to do that. He felt Mickey's hands on his elbows, and braced himself for the inevitable shove, but instead those fingers skimmed gently along his arm hair, up and up and up, over his shoulders and around the side of his neck until he was cupping Ian's face, stroking patterns into his skin. 

Ian grabbed at Mickey's neck, and the smell of his neck was just right. there, and Ian shook with the urge to just bury his face there, lean on Mickey, drown in Mickey, melt in Mickey, but he couldn't do that, not when he saw how much Mickey needed him to hold him up, too. So Ian clutched at him, ignored the trembling of his own legs, begging him to sink. 

But Mickey took the choice away from him, pulled Ian's head into the crook of his neck, until Ian was panting out hot breaths against Mickey's pulse. Ian kissed the skin there, gently, not trying to start anything, lips spelling out thank you. 

He could feel Mickey's hand in his hair, petting slowly, deliberately. His hand wasn't shaking now, not at all, and Ian thought that maybe that was what Mickey needed, to be trusted like this, to know that Ian would hand his soul over to be taken care of, that Ian thought Mickey's body was the safest place to hide in the winter.

"We don't have to talk about it," he said, voice hoarse, and meant it. 

Mickey's hand tugged on his hair, gently, just enough to get him to look up, look him directly in the eye. "Okay," Mickey whispered, and then he kissed Ian on the mouth. "Okay." 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same warning applies.

Mickey didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to say it, because he knew words would only corrupt the thing, degrade it, reduce it from that pulse in his chest singing out the words like they were the only language he ever knew.

_I love you like flowers love sunlight, and I love you like seeds love rain, and I love you like the sand at the shore loves the sea. You could pull me away, little by little, fast and slow, you could drown me, but it wouldn't matter, you would teach me to swim._

_You crashed into my mind and it should have smashed my walls down like a demolition, should have torn apart the fabric of me, because it hurt enough for that, to let you in._

_But somehow my head feels less broken than ever, with both of our torn hands bleeding on wooden slat after wooden slat._

He kissed Ian instead, soft and then harder and harder, willing the words to pour out through his skin. "Okay," he whispered, helping Ian out of his shirt, dropping kisses against every inch of skin he saw. 

When they finished, and Ian was a heavy weight pressing in all the wrong places on top of him, his breath hot and uncomfortable against Mickey's face, telling him that Ian was seconds away from sleep even though Mickey could tell getting to sleep would be a battle for himself, Mickey pushed the hair back from Ian's forehead and leaned up to kiss between his eyebrows. "Goodnight, Your Highness," he whispered. 

Ian's responding smile was enough to carry him to that dream place.

***

They had drifted again, and on Mickey's side of things it was. That Day. Again. He waited until after they had disconnected, after Ian had calmed down, before bringing it up again. "Do we have to go there, every time?" Mickey said. He wished he could have asked it casually, like a suggestion for a new restaurant, rather than letting the irritation and fear seep into his tone, like always. 

"I don't do it on purpose." A part of Mickey loved that Ian knew exactly what he was talking about, without having to name it, but even still he huffed out a breath of disbelief. "Do you like seeing everything in my brain?"

"What--?"

"Do you like. Everything you see. Every time we do the neural handjob." Mickey forced himself not to smile at that, the way Ian wanted him to, using their inside joke for the drift to chip away at Mickey's shield.

It felt like a trick question, like either way Mickey went he would just escalate things further, until they were screaming and storming out.  _Yes, I love everything_ , he could say, but that would only lead into  _Liar. Liar. You fucking liar._  So he considered,  _no, I don't like seeing the bruises, I don't like seeing where your blood blooms, no, I don't like every inch of your mind_ , but it felt like a lie, felt like it would have been more appropriate to say,  _yes, I love your brain, yes I love all of you._  He opened his mouth. His tongue was dry.

"Right, I didn't fucking think so. You don't control what you see in my brain, I don't control what I see in yours. I don't seek him out."

"What, you saying  _I_  do?"

"Maybe not consciously, no."

The accusation under those words stung. "Oh, fuck off," he muttered, moving away from Ian.

Ian's hands on his shoulders stilled him. "No, I mean it, maybe something in your brain is telling you to deal with it, to air it out, to show me so someone can see."

"And yours? You want me to see your stuff, too?"

"Maybe," Ian shot back defensively.

Mickey was quiet for a minute. He didn't talk about these things, but maybe. Maybe Ian needed it. "Those guys. Those old guys you were with. In your head."

"You jealous?"

"Fuck off," Mickey said again, with less venom this time.

Ian's hands stroked over his shoulders. "No one will ever have me the way you have me."

Mickey didn't know whether the words were meant to be reassuring, but they didn't have that effect. "Sorry," he grunted out defensively, but he meant it.  _I'm sorry you have such a shitty excuse for a shelter. I'm sorry my hands aren't broad enough to shield you from the world. I'm sorry what should be the warm whole home of our mind is riddled with bullet holes and scorch marks and ash. I'm sorry the shadows have substance, that you can't sink into the darkness of me like falling asleep._

_I'm sorry I can't cut those men out of your past. I'm sorry I got here so late._

Ian's face softened, like he could read the apologies on Mickey's skin. "It's okay. It's okay."

"I know I--"

"Hey, hey, I know. I wish. I wish it could have happened sooner. You and me." Ian leaned over and kissed the sharpest bone in Mickey's shoulder, just for a second. 

"You gonna....you gonna bitch if I keep hating 'em?" Mickey scratched at the side of his lip. "If I keep a place in the drift for that."

 _Let go of your hate_ , he expected Ian to say. 

"Can I keep a spot for your dad?" Ian asked instead, voice careful.

And the thought warmed him, in more ways than one, Ian hating his dad, Ian imagining himself hurting Terry in all the spots of the drift that Terry hurt Mickey. It felt good, to give that to Ian, to allow Ian to feel that perfect blinding hatred, because he couldn't manage that himself, not without some part of his mind whispering, "Traitor. Liar." Ian would take the weight of hating Terry from Mickey's shoulders. He smiled at the thought, and when he looked up, he saw the same thing written on Ian's face.  _Hate them for me. Hate them without guilt because I can't._

Ian slipped a hand around his jaw. "You can hate them. It's okay."

"Okay. I'll do that."

"You can hate them for me," Ian whispered next to him that night. Mickey cleared his throat, wanted to say, "Gladly," but instead he blindly knocked his hand against Ian's body, stumbling along his hip, stroking up until he found his hand and squeezing tight.

"And I'll love you for you," Ian added, not a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"I--"

"I see the way you see yourself. In the drift. You think you're ugly. Awful. Waste of space."

"That's just the way it is, Gallagher," he snapped, voice harsh.

"It isn't. But I get it." Ian shifted on his side, leaned closer until he could press kisses along Mickey's shoulder, his collarbone, his neck. "So. In the meantime," he whispered, right against Mickey's ear, because Ian was saying it's okay, for right now, it's okay, but you're not allowed to hate yourself forever, not forever, so in the meantime, "I'll do it for you."

Mickey swallowed. "And  _after_?"  _Do we fight this battle together and then go home to our families when we've won, bruised and battered and swallowing our memories? Do you stop loving me when I'm fixed?_

"There is no after," Ian said, voice serious, like he was delivering bad news. "Not for us." 

And Mickey understood, that there was never going to be an end-of-the-rainbow moment, where the shadows in their heads were gone for good, where they could put their weapons down, where they could rest, for good. There was no after. 

But right here, right now, pressed against Ian's chest, he didn't have to fight. At least not alone. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Two little boys holding hands in a field. 

That's what Ian sees now, when he closes his eyes at night.

When he opens them in the morning, he thinks:

This is what they don't tell you about surviving--it's not a muscle you can toughen with practice. It doesn't get stronger each time you use it. It doesn't hurt any less, each subsequent time you decide not to die. 

And when you stop being alone, when you join a two-soldier army, the weight doesn't feel lighter.

It's twice as heavy.

But my sweat and his sweat, my skin and his skin, his pain and my pain, his hand in mine, carrying him and being carried--

It's not just holding a sword, or a shield, or a flag. It's not just swallowing your fear. It's not just defending a home that feels less and less like yours every day, every day transformed more and more into the walls you have to put up to survive outside. It's not even just mending a home.

It's making one. 

Ian turns over in bed, watches Mickey frown thoughtfully in his sleep, eyebrows creased, and Ian wonders at Mickey like he's a dream even after exploring his mind deeper than his own. When Mickey's eyes open and a smile spreads across his face before leaning in for a kiss--

Ian thinks, for a few precious seconds that could stretch on into forever, that this isn't a war.

It's an adventure. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from a quote by Albert Camus: "In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." You'll notice this fic isn't about the war at all (it's a plot-less mess, I'm sorry) and is more of a device to talk about abuse and recovery, but in my head "Invincible Summer" is what Ian and Mickey eventually name their jaeger.


End file.
